Mountain bike hall of famer’s blood spilled

An extensive search was undertaken by volunteers on foot, horseback, in planes and helicopters. Dogs followed his scent, but they eventually lost track while going south.

A little more than a month later, passersby found a motorbike Mike had borrowed from a friend in the Sangre de Cristo mountains about 20 miles east of his home. It had obviously been pushed over the side of a cliff. Investigators found blood on the foot clutch.

In the two-plus years since his brother’s disappearance, Carl Rust has often imagined what must have happened to his brother.

Mike likely spotted whoever broke into his home, jumped on the motorbike and raced after them. When he caught up to them he likely got off his bike and confronted them about the break in. There is a strong chance that he recognized them. One of the trespassers snuck up behind him and cracked him in the back of the head with the stolen revolver.

“This thing probably happened on the spur of the moment and then they said, ‘Oh, crap. Now what do we do?’ ”

They load his body into a pickup truck and made it disappear. Someone who had stepped in his blood drove his motorbike away.

On March 31, the two-year anniversary of his brother’s disappearance, Carl Rust went to Mike’s property at the same time of day. It was still daylight. He thought about his brother, a trim, feisty guy who wouldn’t let someone get away with stealing a keepsake that reminded him of his deceased brother.

Carl Rust also pictures what he hopes will happen in the near future. Someone will be on a bar stool one day and overhear whisperings about the day his brother Mike went missing. The person on the stool will slip away and call the sheriff’s office, knowing he can get a hefty reward.

“We’re hoping,” he said.

Friends and acquaintances have put up a $25,000 reward seeking evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of Mike’s killers.

So far there haven’t been any takers.

Contact information: The Saguache County Sheriff’s Office can be reached at 719-655-2544. Denver Post reporter Kirk Mitchell at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com

As above give a nice post. I like to drive a nice Mountain bike. Mostly I will use a mountain bike when I want to go short distance. It body is strong and well. They amount his physique into a auto barter and fabricated it disappear.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.